r Lieutenant; my duty to my sovereign--"

"Silence. Gentlemen, I shall be obliged to notify the matter to the
proper authorities. I expect you will be called upon to clear
yourselves before the magistrate, which I have no doubt you will be
able to do successfully. I need not detain you any longer."

Wilhelm and Schrotter bowed courteously and withdrew, without
vouchsafing a glance at the informer. The latter lingered, as if he
would have liked to continue the conversation with the lieutenant of
police, but an emphatic "You may go!" sent him rapidly over the
threshold of the office.

Five days afterward, on a Friday, Schrotter and Wilhelm were summoned
to appear in the Stadtvogtei [Footnote: A certain prison in Berlin.]
before the magistrate, a disagreeable person with a bilious complexion,
venomous eyes behind his spectacles, and the unpleasing habit of
continually scooping out his ear with the little finger of his left
hand. The two friends, the informer, and the policeman were present.
The magistrate could not have received them differently if they had
been accused of robbing and murdering their parents. To be sure, he
behaved no better to the informer. His expression of unmitigated
disgust was perhaps a freak of nature, and no indication of the true
state of his feelings.

He had a bundle of papers before him, in which he searched for some
time before opening his mouth.

"You are accused of having made use of offensive expressions regarding
his majesty," he said to Schrotter.

"On a preposterously unfounded charge," he retorted.

"And you too," he turned to Wilhelm.

"I can only repeat Dr. Schrotter's answer."

"Give your evidence," he ordered the policeman.

The man did so.

"Could you understand what the gentleman said?"

"No."

"How far was Patke behind them?"

"A few steps."

"You must be more exact."

"I can't say more exactly than that, for I paid no attention to the
gentlemen till I was told to arrest them."

"Is it your opinion that Herr Patke could have heard distinctly what
the gentlemen were saying to one another?"

"I dare say he might have understood if they spoke very loud, but I
can't say for certain."

"Herr Patke, what have you to say?"

The former non-commissioned officer, who had donned his 1870 medal for
the occasion, hereupon assumed a strictly military bearing, fixed his
eye firmly on the magistrate, and began in a sing-song voice:

"I happened to be in the street la